image of person or book cover 2012000853690108150.jpg
Ruby Langford Ginibi Ruby Langford Ginibi i(A19568 works by) (a.k.a. Ruby Maude Langford)
Also writes as: Ruby Langford
Born: Established: 26 Jan 1934 Coraki, Evans Head - Coraki area, Mid North Coast, New South Wales, ; Died: Ceased: 2 Oct 2011 Sydney, New South Wales,
Gender: Female
Heritage: Aboriginal ; Aboriginal Bundjalung
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Dr. Ruby Langford Ginibi was born at Box Ridge Mission, Coraki, on the north coast of New South Wales in 1934. A proud Bundjalung woman, she grew up in Bonalbo and attended high school in Casino. When she turned fifteen, she moved to Sydney where she qualified as a clothing machinist. Married at an early age, she had nine children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. For many years, she lived and camped in the bush around Coonabarabran, working at fencing, lopping and ring-barking trees and pegging kangaroo skins. At other times, she lived in Sydney and was employed in clothing factories.

Ginibi made her literary debut at fifty-four, when her first book Don't Take Your Love To Town was released in 1988, Australia's Bicentennial Year. This book, which revealed the struggles and trials faced by Aboriginal women, won her a Human Rights Award.

Her second book, Real Deadly, was published in 1992 and her third, My Bundjalung People (1994), is an account of her return to the mission in Coraki to locate and reconnect with her extended family. Her fourth book, Haunted By the Past ,was published in 1999 and recounts the story of her son Nobby's incarceration.

Ginibi was not only an author, but also a lecturer and historian in Aboriginal history, culture, and politics at various universities and colleges. Recognised as a spokesperson, educator and recorder of Koori culture, she has travelled and lectured at home and abroad.

Ginibi received an inaugural History Fellowship from the Ministry of Arts in 1990, an inaugural Honorary Fellowship from the Australian National Museum in 1995, and an inaugural Doctorate of Letters (Honors Causia) from La Trobe University in 1998.

Her tribal name 'Ginibi' (black swan) was given to her in 1990 by her aunt, Eileen Morgan, a tribal elder of Box Ridge Mission.

Exhibitions

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Don't Take Your Love to Town Ringwood : Penguin , 1988 Z496435 1988 single work autobiography (taught in 10 units)

'Don’t Take Your Love to Town is a story of courage in the face of poverty and tragedy. Ruby recounts losing her mother when she was six, growing up in a mission in northern New South Wales and leaving home when she was fifteen. She lived in tin huts and tents in the bush and picked up work on the land while raising nine children virtually single-handedly. Later she struggled to make ends meet in the Koori areas of Sydney. Ruby is an amazing woman whose sense of humour has endured through all the hardships she has experienced.' (Source UQP website: www.uqp.uq.edu.au)

1988 joint winner Human Rights Awards Arts Literature Award
Last amended 28 Sep 2017 14:17:14
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X